IT IS home to 55 different nationalities who speak a total of 153 languages.

For the vast majority of people Southampton’s rich combination of cultures is a cause for celebration - but new figures show the city is the second worst in the UK for hate crime.

Almost 600 incidents were reported in 2016-17 - a 30 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. Only Liverpool recorded a higher figure.

Today organisations across Southampton are launching a Daily Echo-backed campaign to tackle the issue and make the city a safer place for everyone.

The campaign - Love Don’t Hate - is headed by the SPECTRUM Centre for Independent Living, a Southampton organisation which aims to ensure disabled people lead full, independent lives free from discrimination.

Love Don’t Hate has been devised in conjunction with National Hate Crime Awareness Week, which also starts today.

The organisations involved, including the Muslim Women’s Network and Southampton Voluntary Services, represent all sections of Southampton society.

Groups have joined forces with the aim of raising awareness, improving the reporting process and encouraging everyone to adopt a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime.

Ian Loynes, chief executive of SPECTRUM, pictured, said: “It is unacceptable that in a city like Southampton people are being allowed to get away with treating others unfairly and maliciously because of their differences.

“We want those personally affected by hate crime - and those witnessing it - to speak out.”

The community-wide partnership has created a network of 18 centres across Southampton where people can report hate crime and access support.

A new smartphone app, Southampton Love Don’t Hate, has also been developed as part of the campaign.

The app, which is available to download on Google Play and Apple, allows users to report a hate crime to the nearest centre.

Ian added: “Everyone in Southampton should feel confident and sufficiently empowered to recognise and report incidents of hate crime, yet we know from statistics and first-hand experience this is very often not the case.

“We cannot tackle crimes that are not reported.

“Addressing under-reporting is crucial to our broader aim of reducing these incidents and making Southampton a better and safer city, with zero tolerance of this behaviour.”

The highest percentage of hate crimes occurred in the Bargate area and are thought to have been fuelled by the night-time economy.

Portswood saw the biggest increase in hate crime, with the number of incidents doubling between 2015 and 2016, while Millbrook had the highest proportion of hate crimes committed against disabled people.

Across the city almost 80 per cent of the 574 incidents reported in 2016-17 were rate-hate crimes.

But the problem is not confined to Southampton.

In February last year it was revealed that hate crime in Hampshire as a whole had leapt to an all-time high.

Police reported 463 incidents between July and September 2016 – the highest quarterly figure since comparable records began in April 2012.

Great strides have been made in tackling the issue across the UK but campaigners say more work needs to be done.

The standard of many police investigations into hate crime is unacceptable, according to a newly-published report by watchdog groups.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate looked at how the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) handle cases involving hate crimes committed against disabled people.

The report is highly critical of several police forces in England and Wales.

It says officers are failing to “flag” cases as disability hate crimes on police computer systems and are also failing to refer many cases to the CPS for possible prosecution.

The watchdogs say they examined almost 100 incidents investigated by six police forces, including Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

They found that in 19 (21 per cent) of the cases there were avoidable delays in the investigation, with all reasonable lines of enquiry explored in only 69 of the 90 cases (77 per cent).

In 51 of the cases the case files were considered to be sub-standard, including 24 that were deemed “inadequate”.

The report concludes that the standard of police investigations into disability hate crime was “unacceptable in many cases”.